I’m sorry for the rant. That was just my way of blowing off steam. It was late. I was Young. I was stuck indoors for 24+ hours by a feet of snow.

Let me say I hold no animosity towards PROzess, or Krytyk. I like and respect both of their works. With Krytyk, the only thing I really wanted was to clarify my translating methods to avoid misunderstanding. They both do really good work. I’m a fan. As for PROzess, I hold nothing against him/her whatsoever, it just so happened that the comments I wanted to object to were on his/her blog.

Oh yes, and to those of you who don’t know, my icon is Elizabeth.

Chapter 240: Research Material

“Is this supposed to be an old RPG Dungeon…” (Naofumi)

There were plenty of traps, but we managed to destroy them through physical means.
Rocks chased us, and the ceiling fell on us, but Firo and Gaelion dealt with these one way or another.

The rocks were kicked to oblivion.

The ceiling? I acted as a pillar of support while Firo and Gaelion competed in destroying it.

How should I put this. The Justice Zombies and traps made a certain post-apocalyptic game play back in my head.
We’ve been scouting for around 30 minutes, and we’ve managed to proceed quite far.
At one point, we found a passage that led outside. The exit was a cave-like structure.
Could this have been the one that Kiel was talking about?

There were also prison-like rooms arranged in a grid formation. ‘The Devil of the Shield’s Subordinate Asylum’ was scribbled on them.

Finally, we emerge in a room that seems to be a research lab. Looking over the documents scattered around, a certain one catches my eye.
“We did an analysis of their combat strength, but it seems that was all based on secondhand information. Their actual strength is estimated to be much lower.”

Various plans to harass my territory, such as the commandeering of my Bioplant Field, are written, but it seems they’ve been put on hiatus.
There are plenty of test tubes like the ones in Rat’s lab, so it seems that an alchemist has been here.
Also…

“Just how large is this building?” (Naofumi)
“There’s a document about me here too.” (Ren)

Ren begins flipping through a document with his name on the cover.
The problem is that his reading skills are not that high, so he doesn’t seem to understand what’s written.

“Estimated level: 75, but actual level estimated to be higher.
Skill level allows for him to take out a group of twenty level 80 enemies.
Danger level: (Average)”… How sad.

“According to Mald, his swordsmanship isn’t very high.
According to the Princess’s testimony, the possibility that he will help our cause is low. And as such, we will decrease his power by taking any useful equipment or funding he may hold.”

Well, you know… Ren wasn’t really fighting for real, so it’s not like you can estimate his strength from that.
And the Ren of that time really wasn’t particularly strong.
However, just by relying on the power of the legendary weapon, he was without a doubt stronger than Armor.

“It seems that the reason for Witch abandoning you is documented here.” (Naofumi)
“Really?” (Ren)
“Apparently, ‘the possibility that he will help our cause is low’.” (Naofumi)
“Of course… Naofumi is one thing, but if a group wanted to take over the country, I’d probably refuse… I think.” (Ren)
“No, that’s where you should be certain.” (Naofumi)
“Yeah, the me of that time was a little messed up, so I don’t really have confidence that-” (Ren)
“The old you was supposed to be a (self-proclaimed) cool, analytical character, right? You’d probably have left them without saying anything.” (Naofumi)
“Don’t put it so bluntly… but you’re probably right.” (Ren)

My document is next to his. It’s quite thick.

“Estimated level: Impossible to Determine.
Danger Level: (Maximum).
God Class.
Reports indicate that he was able to block the Spirit Turtle’s attacks, but the truth is unclear.
Still, it can be concluded that he has very high defense.
His weak point would be his low attack, but he has been starting to build up forces.
Urgent countermeasures are required.”

“Without careful planning and resources, defeating him will probably be impossible…
Within my forces, the most detailed reports are ones about Raphtalia and Firo.
My forces had planned to have their subordinates dress up as robbers, and attack Raphtalia when she was out training, or Firo when she was peddling. They were to awaken them to the notion of「Justice」. But the plan failed, and their agents’ whereabouts have yet to be determined.”

I don’t know where, but it seems we’ve already had a victory against them.
Raphtalia’s group probably apprehended them and turned them in to the nearest town.
Only people like Atlas would be able to see anything special about that dagger anyways.

There’s also a report of using the Sword Hero to test my ability.
This one seems to be quite recent.

“Estimated Level 100.
If we send a large amount of disposable pawns trained in dealing with his Shield, victory may be possible.
We will send our Trump Card, Mald, to finish him with the strongest equipment.
This is theoretically the most effective measure.”

“This… is…” (Naofumi)

A grave mistake! The work of a fool.
I’m sorry, but it seems your expectations have betrayed you.
I was already able to stop their strongest equipment. I guess that’s something they weren’t expecting.
The next few documents about me seem to be a little older.

They’re things like learning Hengen Musou in order to break through my defense. Apparently, acquisition of the techniques proved to be too difficult, and the plan was put on hiatus.
Well, that martial art required quite a bit of talent and a lot of experience.
They didn’t have that much time, so it was impossible to learn for people who only wanted strength to inflate their own egos.
Besides, the current me can negate a weak defense-breaching attack.

There were many other plans proposed, but in the end, they shifted towards infecting my subordinates with「Justice」.
How troublesome.
Put your useless efforts toward something more productive.

What about solving puzzles? Don’t care.
There’s probably a key somewhere around here, but searching for it is a pain.
An officer of the Three Hero Church is probably holding it, and I don’t need it.

“Ye~s!” (Firo)
“Kyua!” (Gaelion)

Firo and Gaelion competitively reduce the wall to rubble.
It seems there was a secret door somewhere in it, and behind it is a single room.

“It’s more research data.” (Naofumi)

Upon entering the room, I found many more documents piled up.

“What is this? Reproducing… the Heroes’ weapons?” (Naofumi)

I read the document from the start.
… It’s a report on the weapon the pope used.

It spoke of maintenance cost and how to imbue it with magic. They looked at the problem from quite a few angles.
Apparently, these weapons were items of a lost civilization, and reproducing them with modern alchemy was difficult.

Yet, they planned to aim for mass production.
In the end… It ended in failure.
However…

“If we can capture a Hero test subject… Research will advance leaps and bounds?” (Naofumi)

After that was a sketch of… something labeled as a fragment of a weapon.

A sketch of a fragment of the Demon Lord’s weapon.
I’m pretty sure that Legendary Weapons couldn’t be damaged.
So there was something like that?

Also, where the hell did Armor run off to?
He probably proceeded smoothly with a key.
I’m fed up already.
I’ll have the Queen send people to look over this research later.
There’s no end to these stacks of paper.

And, continuing our pursuit, we end up going deeper and deeper into the lab.
We pass by a test tube. It is filled with a strange liquid, and a dagger is suspended in it.
This seems to be the origin of those weapons.

“Atlas, can you see anything?” (Naofumi)
“Yes. The evil aura… is coming from over there.” (Atlas)

Atlas points to the source of the pipeline connected to the test tube.
Well that’s obvious.

“It’s gotten stronger than before.” (Atlas)
“Then the origin may be over there.” (Naofumi)

Should we go over and do some collection?
I think Rat would be delighted here.
I wasn’t able to procure that much funding, so maybe I’ll repossess some of these facilities and recycle them.

In the end, he’s still a dragon.
Later, I’ll repossess that too.
Though I have no idea where they got their treasure from.

“Yay. You got him mad.” (Firo)

And Firo is Firo.

Anyways, while we were messing around as such, we arrive in a wide room.
There, Armor is tapping on a stone tablet as if it were a keyboard.

“So this is where you went. Thanks for leading us here. As a reward, I’ll send you to the other world.” (Naofumi) (TL: As in the afterlife)
“Ku… So you’re already here, Demon Lord of the Shield!” (Armor)
“There were quite a few interesting gadgets set up, but we destroyed them all. Didn’t you hear us get here?” (Naofumi)

What is he doing, anyways?
Armor gives a wide smile as he places his finger on the stone tablet.

“But you’re too late. We’ve already fulfilled our purpose!” (Armor)

By this pattern, something’s going to pop out, right?
As I think that, the ground behind Armor splits in two, and something rises out of it.
From the looks of it, it’s another test tube.

“Naofumi-sama.” (Atlas)
“What?” (Naofumi)
“There’s a fearsome, ominous aura emanating from over there. I assume it to be the progenitor of this incident.” (Atlas)
“I see.” (Naofumi)

What’s going to come out?
Usually in these situations, a large monster is summoned.
And then Armor would become a sacrifice and get killed by it.

“Ha ha ha.” (Armor)

I ignore the laughing Armor and gaze into the test tube.

“Wha-” (Naofumi)

The Hero of the Bow, Itsuki, was lying down inside of it.
But he seems a little strange.

“Bufu!” (Itsuki)

His eyes are covered, and a Gag ball is in his mouth, preventing him from speaking.
What sort of joke is this?
He’s probably been forcefully apprehended. The fact that I’m imagining S&M scenarios makes me question my own psyche.

Anyways, it’s not a pretty scene.
I want to laugh.
Just when I was wondering where he had gone, I find him confined here.

“I-Itsuki!? What happened to you!?” (Ren)
“FUEEEEEEEEEE!?” (Rishia)

In a contrast to my amusement, Ren and Rishia seem highly troubled.
But, I guess their reactions are the correct ones here.
I feel that if Raphtalia were here, she would put pressure on me.

“Is that your trump card?” (Naofumi)

Isn’t Itsuki supposed to be a false prophet to this guy?
Did he lose hope and come crying to Itsuki for help?
Then why is Itsuki in a test tube?

“Now awaken! It’s time to annihilate the Demon Lord of the Shield!” (Armor)

168 Responses to Chapter 240: Research Material

great job as always yorai chii, cliffhangers man… was so hyped for the fight scene.

keep up th great work, i cant read japanese but from your translation, i was able to feel the flow of the plot as if i was reading an english novel. i dontknow about the others but im really thankful for the effort and time you spend TLing TatenoYu.

TLDR: Line 9 – We’ve -> We’d/ We had & yorai awesome, prozess slightly annoyed at but no less awesome

need to clarify if the tense is past or present. cant understand a lick of japanese so cant refer to source material to see if thats the manner its written in but “We’ve” and “found” are conflicting

From the following paragraphs seems all past tense, ie:
“We had been scounting for around thirty minutes and managed to proceed quite far.”
Dont know how much that diverges from the authors style so yeh this is from a purely english adaptation.

PS. just like most on here ive read up on the beef with prozess and that post. whilst i dont think there was any (many….) bad feelings in the post n comments made i think everyone excluding you lacked alot of tack initially with all other parties clarifying and clearing the air afterwards. since ive read just about every one of your posts im quite proud of how you handled it (not that i have much if any claim to it)
whilst you may not be professional (as we all sometimes comment on and help you fix any mistakes to the best of our abilities) i dont think anyone can blame you in your attempts at this. well thought out and researched approaches i suppose are key and essentially i think the EFFORT you put in is more than enough to credit you. and as youve mentioned its not without a basis that you attempt these translations. i understand that prozess is human and that pressure and the legion known as anon are an ugly beast that is both oppressive and daunting and this lead to some breakdowns and need for vents. however i still really dont appreciate the need to create that post and whether or not intentionally or unintentionally create the strife that he did for you. i revere and admire his work as a translator but i find his character slightly lacking with this whole situation (albeit he did make good with it all in the end but was this all really necessary)
and whilst u said to not comment saying “keep going your doing a good job etc” from what i can see decipher and deduce you are doing a good if not great job, whilst still being human.
so keep it up. IMPROVE YOUR TRANSLATIONS! PROVE THEM WRONG and leave them nothing to complain about. we all want to see you succeed. viva la yorai !
major appreciation ^_^

I… Don’t know. He made one good point at least. Releasing these things daily is having a serious effect on the community involved with reading these things. It IS getting a bit excessive with people asking after the next chapter daily and whilst I might say that Yoraikun himself probably did not deserve the situation and I can understand his motivations, I can also see why translators and editors who work on other projects may find his rapid translation difficult to deal with.

It sets a standard and when people expect the same standard from other, slower translators, including those who take things a step further from simply translating or those who work with more difficult works typically get dragged along with anons harassing them. Where people were once willing to wait a week or two for translations now they barely seem to tolerate waiting a day which is becoming a serious problem as naturally, the quality of these translations is in general dropping.

It’s… Concerning to say the least. Even though I’m not a translator myself and I feel this issue could have been handled a lot better I can see their point.

An interesting viewpoint. I wonder if there’s a way to suppress those asking for the next chapter. It gets really annoying seeing those pop up in the comments. I’m not sure why…I think 9 times out of 10, they’re written with chat speak or something…really unprofessional.

Well, there are people who only allow people registered with the site to comment and report them when they spam but… It doesn’t seem to be the best way of handling things. A lot of the relevant comments also come from Anons after all and besides, the ban system on most sites isn’t difficult to circumvent. Even IP bans are circumventable using proxies which we all know how easy it is to get a hold of. You know who you are.

In any case, even preventing them from commenting can be difficult. It’s a problem within the community itself and I fear it can’t be managed by the translators in any other real way other than to prevent people from commenting entirely and I’m disgusted by the fact I’m even having to suggest such a thing. The problem is that it’s the only way I can see these people stopping yet because of that the translators will be forced to become deaf to the community and other discussions such as this one will no longer be able to take place in the comments section.

However if we don’t these people will continue. Whether we have the translation slowed down or sped up, whether the community pesters them or not, whether we ban one or two to prevent them commenting or not, whether we go out and make a public note or not, I cannot see anything we do making any real, long term difference. It’s always going to be a matter of time before SOMEONE just comes along and begins pandering for a new chapter and that isn’t stopping.

thx for the hard work~, Yorai-kun since a read one of your coments about your “reasons for translationg” do you want to discus more about the series here? i will glady discus everything here and i am sure many also will, starting now!
That realy came out of nowhere, this case was way more seriuos then a previous thoght… the revolutionaries realy did their ground work before atacking Naofumi xD

I like how Naofumi thought of S&M scenarios. :-) Guess the ball gag and blindfold would do that. I’m also glad Mald hasn’t set a self-destruct or some similar cliche (yet), that’s a lot of plot-explaining info to lose.

I think we understand about the rant, that was some serious pricking about your efforts.

I agree with you. If it’s Pride, then it makes sense. He had pretty high pride about “hidden justice”. But, about sloth, i don’t know about how is it related to him…..

Oh, are you still remember at Cal Mi Ra Island where Itsuki mostly kill steal the others’ prey?? Is Sloth related to this, because he is too lazy find a prey on his own. so he just kill steal from others far away using his bow….xD

Well, my opinion is that the laziness is shown in the creation of the Justice Dagger’s ailment (if we can call it that). The infected is able to infect others with the ailment so basically, once you infect someone, you don’t have to do anything and the infection will eventually spread. Sounds pretty lazy to me.

I’ve read various web novels on several sites, but word press had caught my attention… I am quite curious as if it cost anything to open up a page on WordPress? I would do the obvious and as the site managers but I’m afraid I won’t get a quick response. Besides I trust those who visit and use the site more….So if anyone knows anything please inform me

Yoraikun
Estimated level: Astronomical
Danger level: (Maximum)
Divine Translator class
Reports indicate he can translate a chapter of Tate no Yuusha within two hours. Rumours are spreading that he can translate the Writings of the Gods. He is extremely dangerous and to be brought to me immediately.

Wouldn’t Yoraikun’s Danger level be minimal? After all, considering how much time he goes into bringing us releases he’s… Wait… He’s successfully ROBBING US OF OUR SOCIAL LIVES! His releases are dragging us back like zombies and forcing us to read through and laugh and revel in the glory of his translations… Dear god, he IS evil!

I am not linguist so Correct me if I am wrong. Per my understanding pause, is for stopping or interrupting action or speech, while plan is thought which has not been actioned (generally just intention or preparation). Would “pause plan” is a bit contradictory?

Good job as always Yoraikun. Don’t be bother by other translator. They have their own ways of doing thing. Your rant is understandable you need to bent off some steam somewhere and where is the best place to release it on your own turf so rant all you want.

Nah. He just view the language as something to get better at/something to learn from… maybe because he learned it the bloody hard way, that he expect others to also do so..
But well… in reality, people view things differently, and while some gets serious about it, others do not/wont.
Its a metter of perspective.
And ofcourse we readers have a different one than the translators and even the authors!

I hope you don’t worry too much about what others are saying, because many misunderstandings seem to happen, and offense is taken even when none is meant. Because you have the will and desire to be a great translator, I wish you the best in your quest to improve.

On the other hand, I hope you don’t feel too stressed by the unreasonable requests made by some especially as regards chapter releases and release rates. If you wish to take more time, a reasonable person should understand. Meanwhile, I appreciate the chapter postings on here. That is, thank you, again.

Good work as always! I used to haunt this place every night but I was caught up for some nasty shift….and found some arguments broke.
Please don’t worry yourself over, many of us understand what it takes to provide an excellent quality translation. I can’t give you any nicer words than metable already gave, but please believe that there are many person understand what you meant, and agree with that. Some offense may just been a misunderstanding or some wrong choice of words.
It really nice to share our mutual craziness over a great story together. What you have done is so much appreciated. You have a life too, so please don’t push yourself too hard over our chirping about new chapter. And so, please accept my sincere gratitude for all of your hard work. May your effort be blessed.

Yoraikun, speaking of Elizabeth, I’ve been putting off watching Gintama: Kanketsu-hen for over a year now. ~,~’ (Of course, I don’t even know if Elizabeth appears in that movie, haha.)

Mm-hmm… a dragon can smell treasure. >,<

P.S. I do appreciate your time and effort in doing these translations so I understand your indignation when you were directly/indirectly labeled "garbage" by a cowardly anon or some arrogant/misinformed/judgmental named poster/commenter in another website. (Two hours for each chapter is half-a-cour worth of tv anime after all. *That* sacrifice is admirable. On the readers' side, it's just five to fifteen minutes of reading.)